History

The Lightning stemmed from a 1947 requirement for a fighter capable of unprecedented performance.
English Electric's design was so radical at the time that the Royal Aircraft Establishment took
exception to some parts of it. They went so far as to award Shorts with a contract to put together
an aircraft to show EE just what parts of their design were wrong. So born was the SB.5, which
could have its wing sweep and tailplane position varied between flights. This first flew on
the 2nd of December 1952 and by early 1954, the trials had confirmed EE's choice of low tailplane
and mainplane sweep angle.

The first prototype, designated the P.1, took to the air on the 4th of August 1954, piloted
by Roland Beamont, EE's chief test pilot. Powered by Sapphire engines, on its third flight (on the
11th) it exceeded Mach 1 in level flight, the first British aircraft to do so. Reheat (afterburner)
had not been used; supercruise was here a long time before it became an American buzz word during their ATF
programme! The second prototype, the P.1A (a P.1. with twin 30mm cannon and later a bulged belly
fuel tank), took to the air on the 18th of July 1955 and introduced the new aircraft to airshow-goers
at that year's Farnborough show. The P.1s, while recognisably Lightning ancestors, had a number of
differences in appearance. Most obviously, they had yet to receive a radar, and the nose intake was
egg-shaped rather than round; looking like a basking shark's mouth. No ventral fuel tanks were fitted
to start with and the vertical tail was substantially smaller.

P.1A WG760

English Electric were by now working on a possible production variant, the P.1B. This had a
ventral fuel tank, Ferranti AI-23 radar, raised cockpit and Avon engines. Armament had improved
with the inclusion of a ventral pack to take either two more cannon, two retractable rocket packs
or two Firestreak infra-red homing missiles. The vertical tail was increased in size from the
fourth P.1B onwards, after some slight directional stability problems had been found when flying at
high speeds. In fact, the P.1B was a very different aircraft to the P.1 and P.1A; so much so that
EE had some worries that the government could cancel this 'new' project if EE presented it as such.
Accordingly, the designation for this new variant was merely P.1B, which made it at least sound
like a minor modification instead of a major advance. In late 1956 an order for 20 of these
aircraft was placed so that testing of every aspect of the new fighter could be accelerated. EE's
decision on the P.1B designation may very well have saved the project, because the 1957 Defence
White Paper cancelled almost every advanced aircraft project in development, but left the P.1
alone.

P.1B XA847 carrying out gravel bed arrestor trials

While the P.1 had survived the Defence White Paper, export prospects practically disappeared.
In later months, the government even went so far as to sabotage English Electric's own efforts to
sell the aircraft to Germany - after frustrating and fruitless attempts to sell the aircraft
to the Luftwaffe, EE discovered a government representative was actually telling the Germans not to buy the
aircraft! On the 4th of April 1957 the first P.1B flew. On this flight it also exceeded Mach 1 without using
reheat. In July, the world air speed record (then at mach 1.72) had been broken. Flight testing
was not without its mishaps; problems with the canopy release mechanism resulted in no less than
three in-flight losses of the canopy. The pilots involved were lucky to survive (one canopy
self-jettison occurred at supersonic speed, making the pilot, de Villiers, the fastest open-cockpit
pilot in the world). Some amusement in the press was caused by these failures; Punch printed a
cartoon showing the P.1 with rope wrapped around the fuselage and canopy with a caption of
"Had a little trouble losing cockpit canopies, but I think we've mastered it."

Chief of the Air Staff Sir Dermot Boyle and English Electric chairman Sir George Nelson christen the Lightning; BAC

The Sapphire engines in the P.1A were also a cause of some dissatisfaction; for a while reheat
was unavailable because of poorly performing reheat installation. The Avons fitted to the P.1B would
had similar problems, and the fire warning system was unreliable too - false warnings abounded for
several months until both the engines and the warning system were fixed. With performance of the aircraft
better than predicted, EE designed new wings with a kinked and cambered leading edge; this gave better subsonic
performance and gave a little more available space to store fuel in. These were flown on the P.1B
but EE did not want to proceed with the new wings until they were absolutely sure of their usefulness,
and official indifference led to the new wings not entering production until many years later.
In October 1958, the RAF officially named their new aircraft - Lightning had struck.
One month later, using minimum afterburner, the Lightning attained mach 2.0; thunder follows lightning!

Lightning F.1s of 74 Squadron at RAF Coltishall, February 1961

The initial requirement did not actually specify mach 2 performance, but EE had seen that it was
possible and the American's F-104 programme was also progressing towards mach 2 performance. Roland
Beamont later stated that the Lightning's performance at mach 2 was much superior to the F-104, with
less noise and vibration and better controllability. A planned Double Scorpion rocket mounted in the
rear of belly tank of the P.1B was cancelled as the aircraft's new Avon engines were found to give
enough extra performance to render the rockets pointless. Besides, the space lost to the rocket and
its fuel would have meant even less room for jet fuel, and the Lightning was short enough of that
as it was.

Late 1959 saw the RAF finally getting their hands on some Lightnings to trial.
The Lightning F.1 differed very little from the P.1B; the ventral fuel tank now had a small
fin, the main vertical tail was enlarged and that was about it. It entered service with 74 squadron
at Coltishall in 1960, and the F.1A followed on, entering service with 56 and 111 squadrons at
Wattisham. The only difference of note was that the F.1A had attachment points for an in-flight
refuelling probe - the Lightning's limited fuel capacity meant that interception missions were
almost limited to the area of the airfield otherwise!

Variable afterburners made their appearance in the F.2 variant, which was followed by, yes,
you guessed it - the F.3. The F.3 had some more major changes - improved AI-23B radar, more powerful
Avon engines, a larger square-topped fin, cannon armament removed, Red Top missile capability and
auxiliary overwing fuel tanks.The early days of Lightning operation were characterised by
ever bolder paint schemes, culminating in 56 squadron's famous red and white-checked tails, along
with a red and white arrowhead in front of the nose roundel (pictured to the right). Unfortunately the days of
such brightly-marked fighters were numbered; officialdom soon decreed that the colourful squadron
markings had to go, and Lightnings reverted to natural metal finishes with much more discreet
and standardised markings. During their time in the RAF, Lightnings wowed airshow
audiences in the UK; in 1961, an aerobatic team called The Tigers was formed by 74 squadron -
nine Lightnings in formation! In 1963, 56 squadron formed an aerobatic team - The Firebirds. Taking over
from The Tigers, the red and white markings of the flamboyant 56 squadron were applied to the
aircraft and this, as well as the amazing displays, endeared them to airshow-goers throughout
Europe. At the time, 56 squadron made much of their image, with pilots appearing in national
newspapers and magazines proudly sporting the red and white checks of their squadron.

T.4 XL628, 1959; Charles E Brown

The T.4 (EE designation P.11) was a trainer variant, basically a
two-seat F.1A derivative. During T.4 testing it was found that a larger fin was definitely needed
for this and future versions, after the first T.4, XL628, suffered major fin failure in flight. The pilot ejected
successfully, landing in the Irish sea, but his emergency beacon failed to operate. As only
high-level air-sea-rescue sorties were carried out, looking for the beacon's signal, he was not
found and only survived because he reached shore himself a day later. Heated arguments about the
lack of a low-level visual search led to the much-improved SAR operations of today.
The T.5 was similar to the T.4, but equivalent to an F.3. It too suffered a similar fin failure
during testing, with the aircraft lost and the pilot and observer ejecting successfully. This time
they were both rescued soon after ditching. All trainer variants retained full combat capability.
The accidents resulted in fins on Lightnings being strengthened.

F.6 plans

The F.6 was the definitive Lightning
variant; a much larger ventral fuel tank, with twin ventral fins. Cannon armament was back along with a larger,
more efficient wing with kinked and cambered leading edges. These modifications were also applied to
some F.2 airframes, which then became known as F.2As. These were equivalent to an F.6 apart from
not having Red Top capability. Some F.3s were also converted to F.6 standard, lacking only the
overwing tanks and being briefly known as F.3As in the process, before being fully converted to
full F.6 standard.

Kuwaiti Lightning T.55; Big Bird Aviation collection

Export versions (for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) were also produced; five F.52s for Saudi Arabia
(basically F.2s) and then there was the F.53 which was basically an F.6 with additional air-to-ground
capability in the form of rocket pods and bombs on underwing and overwing pylons. Two T.54 (T.4s)
were built for Saudi Arabia followed by the T.55, which was a super-T.5 - it had the large
ventral fuel tank and enlarged wings of the F.6, while the RAF's T.5s only had the small ventral
fuel tanks and straight wings of earlier variants. F.53s and T.55s for Kuwait were given a K suffix
but differed little from the Saudi versions. The Saudi's F.53s saw brief action in December 1969
during a brief conflict in the South Yemen border area. Several ground attack sorties were flown,
these ending the situation almost without any help from the Saudi army. Saudi pilots loved the
Lightning, and had a habit of making noisy passes over villages - with the result that
many locals thought the sonic booms were a manifestation of Allah!

Variable geometry Lightning mockup; BAe

English Electric made several proposals for other
Lightning variants; a multi-role version (unwanted by the MoD, but later to come to fruition as
the F.53), a variable geometry variant for the Fleet Air Arm (seen here) and later there was a proposal for a much-improved F.7
variant (EE designation P.8), with variable geometry wings, extended fuselage (with main undercarriage relocated to it
to clear the wings for weapon hardpoints), improved radar, intakes relocated to the fuselage sides,
retractable refuelling probe, Sparrow/Skyflash capability and other goodies... but it never came
to anything. BAe also offered to add Sidewinder capability to existing Lightnings, but once again
the proposal was rejected on the usual cost grounds.

Lightning F.6 XR728 being serviced, RAF Binbrook; Andy Bonsell/LPG

When the Lightning was introduced into RAF
service, pilots were delighted with the new fighter and had no problems converting from lower
performance aircraft such as the Hunter. However, ground crew were not as happy. The Lightning
was a much more complex beast than previous aircraft, and maintainer training and RAF engineering
support had not caught up with this fact. In later years when this situation was rectified,
Lightning serviceability was much improved (the Saudis also had few problems, though the Kuwaitis,
with very poor servicing standards, rarely flew their Lightnings). Unfortunately the
initial bad impressions made a big impact on the Air Staff, who then advised the government not
to allow any further spending on Lightning development; the Lightning was also viewed as little
more than a stop-gap until the expected advances in surface-to-air missiles led to manned
fighters becoming completely obsolete.

After thirteen years of service (three years after retirement
had been expected), the RAF had decided that the Phantom would take over the primary air defence
role. This was due to a combination of factors including the aftermath of the TSR.2
fiasco and the draw-down of the Navy's carrier force, and was no reflection on the Lightning's
performance (though its lack of range meant the Phantom's medium range capabilities would be
very useful). The Lightning was still a formidable opponent; even high-flying U-2 pilots became accustomed to
being caught by Lightnings! Lightnings would be kept on in limited numbers, however, and a programme of modifications
was carried out to strengthen them for the extra years of flying that lay ahead.

Lightning F.6s of 5 squadron, RAF Binbrook, 1967

Some light-hearted
moments came when Lightning squadrons challenged other squadrons to races to high altitude. Having
beaten the mighty F-15 Eagle to 30,000 feet (just - with a somewhat stripped down T.5!), their
come-uppance came in a challenge with a Harrier squadron. While the Lightning made the long
journey to the runway from the hangar, the Harrier pilot simply did a vertical take-off and
was at 10,000 feet before the Lightning had even begun its take-off roll! Revenge of a sort came
when one lucky Lightning pilot got the chance to shoot down a Harrier - for real. The Harrier's
pilot had ejected but afterwards the Harrier just kept on flying and rather than risk it crashing
in an unknown area, it was shot down.

The Lightning force draw-down began in 1974; the first Jaguars were being delivered, freeing Phantoms for
pure air-defence. By early 1977, only 5 and 11 squadrons still operated Lightnings. By now,
the natural metal finish of Lightnings had mostly disappeared - green upper surfaces were the
norm for German-based aircraft which spent much of their time at low level where the silver finish
was too conspicuous. Later the normal grey and green scheme was applied to match other Strike
Command aircraft; but this was very much a low level/on the ground scheme and showed up far too
much at high altitudes. In the early 1980s, it was realised once more than Lightnings still had
some use; the Tornado ADV was late in arriving, so the Lightnings once again underwent testing
to see if they could continue flying safely. They could, and did, though reserve and active aircraft
underwent constant rotation to even out the usage of each airframe. Soon, a variety of different
grey schemes were to be seen, to the point where it seemed no two aircraft had the same paint
scheme.

Last, last, Lightning show at RAF Binbrook; Garry Lakin

By 1986, the Lightning's days were definitely numbered - the RAF had announced their final retirement,
which was to be in 1988. The Saudis had retired their Lightnings in late 1985 and BAe bought
back the best of the survivors for possible re-sale to Austria. In the end the deal fell through
for political reasons and Austria bought ex-Swedish Drakens instead; the ex-Saudi Lightnings
then went to museums and collectors. Despite being in excellent condition on arrival in the UK,
the Lightnings were not stored correctly and had deteriorated quite a bit while in BAe's hands
with the result that none have been restored to running condition, let alone flying condition.
In 1987 the Lightning squadrons flew their mounts to the limits of their envelopes, using up the
last remaining hours of fatigue time. Many displays kept the Lightning in the public eye right
until the end, with one of the biggest being the Last, Last Lightning Show at Binbrook. Dismal
weather did little to dampen the proceedings, and some spectacular vapour effects were seen when
the Lightnings went fast enough or pulled hard enough.

In June 1988 the last Lightning in RAF service took off for the final time, destined for a private
buyer. Service with the RAF had lasted from 1960 until 1988; not bad for an aircraft that had
been planned to have a service life of no more than ten years! Had it not been for the lack of
fatigue life on the remaining fleet, a few more years of service could have been had; the
hasty scrapping of many early marks in the 1970s was certainly a mistake!

A small number of F.6s continued to fly with BAe, used for development work on the Tornado ADV
programme, but these too were retired in December 1992. A long silence then fell upon the
Lightning world, broken only by occasional taxi runs of a few kept in ground-running condition.
Thanks to the efforts of Tony Hulls at Cranfield and Barry Pover at Exeter a handful of Lightnings
were kept in such good condition that they now fly again - but sadly they're now in South Africa, far
from home. The Lightning's complexity and poor safety record in service has counted against it in the
eyes of the UK's Civil Aviation Authority and now there are no longer the spares or indeed any truly
viable airframes left in the UK for a return to flight. Three airframes are kept in taxiable condition;
The Lightning Preservation Group at Bruntingthorpe have a pair of F.6s and Russell Carpenter has a T.5
at Cranfield.

T.5 ZU-BBD displaying in South Africa; Hugh Trevor

While in RAF service, the Lightning never fired a shot in anger (unless you count that Harrier!), it was
possibly one of the most agressive looking aircraft ever to fly, and was certainly the backbone of the
air defence of Great Britain for many years. The epitome of British fighter design - short
on fuel but immensely powerful and manoeuvrable and with more character than any of its
contemporaries - the Lightning was the first, and last, all-British supersonic fighter.
While the Lightning's replacements (the Phantom and Tornado ADV in British service, the F-15
Eagle in Saudi service) are excellent aircraft in their own right, none compare with the sheer brute
force and sparkling performance of the ultimate jet sports car - the English Electric Lightning.

Leading Particulars

Variant

P.1A

P.1B

F.1

F.1A

F.2/F.52

F.2A

F.3

F.3A

T.4/T.54

T.5

F.6

F.53

T.55

First flight

4 Aug 1954

4 Apr 1957

29 Oct 1959

16 Aug 1960

11 Jul 1961

24 Sep 1965

16 June 1962

17 Apr 1964

6 May 1959

29 Mar 1962

16 Jun 1965

1 Nov 1966

3 Nov 1966

Crew

One

Two

One

Two

Armament

None

Two 30mm cannon

Two 30mm cannon plus two Firestreak AAMs or two retractable 22 in unguided rocket packs

As F.1 less rocket pack

Two 30mm cannon plus two Firestreak AAMs or four 30mm cannon

As F.2 plus two Red Top AAMs instead of Firestreaks, no cannon

As F.2 less cannon

As F.3

As F.3 plus two 30mm cannon

As F.6 plus bombs, rocket pods and other stores on above- and below-wing pylons

Externally the various variants are quite easily distinguished; there are a number of points
to look for. The tip of the tail had two main styles; rounded and squared off (the latter being
a larger fin altogether). The belly tank also came in two flavours, small with a single strake and
much larger with two strakes. The cannon ports could be found in the nose (usually on top, but
sometimes with additional ones below) or in the forward part of the larger belly tank. Early
marks lacked the cable ducts running along the sides of the lower fuselage, these beginning with
the F.1A variant and extending further forward on the F.3 onwards. A small dorsal scoop could be
found about midway along the upper fuselage spine on the F.2 onwards.

The table below simplifies matters somewhat, but there were several aircraft that differed
in detail (e.g. some had cannon ports faired over when used as targets, F.6s were initially
lacking cannon and so on). Also, P.1A WG760 trialled the kinked wing at one time and some
development batch P1.Bs/F.1s trialled the large squared fin.

Visitor Comments

186 people have commented on this page. This is comment section 1 of 19.

Richard Creaser from Bangkok, Thailand

Posted at 2:46pm on Friday, July 19th, 2019

A comment made by Nigel Hewitson on July 12th 2012:- "I remember the day when Sqdn Ldr 'Dinger' Bell took XV328 (T5) up with a liney and came straight across the top of the line hut at Mach 1+ and only a handful of windows survived. Wg Cdr Carroll had no hesitation in showing his displeasure." I was that liney and remember the sequence of events that led up to that event.

Dan Anderson from LANCASTER

Posted at 11:45am on Monday, August 21st, 2017

Dan Anderson and Terry Trew, in the final year of a technical apprenticeship at the Rolls-Royce factory at East Kilbride in 1959/60 were tasked with producing a fully sectioned Mk 304 Avon engine which powered the English Electric Lightning fighter/interceptor with the requirement that the complete rotor assembly be visible and rotates.This task, using mainly scrapped components from overhaul programmes was completed in 1960 after roughly 6 months of full-time endeavor.I recently discovered that the engine ... read more »read more »

Stephen Dawson from Newport WA

Posted at 2:34pm on Wednesday, June 7th, 2017

Only saw this Acft once. Boy was it LOUD. Still very impressive.

David Carnell from Taunton Somerset

Posted at 9:39am on Saturday, February 18th, 2017

As. Young airman based at RAF Bishops court 1959-1961 I worked in the Lightning trials cell and had various responsibilities,taking films of the radar scope whilst the Warton test pilots were on any one of three test tracks.
I was on duty the day that John Squires had to eject from the T4 XL628 and photographed the entire run from Anglesey to east of Douglas IOM on its way to the mull of kintyre and saw it disappear from the T80 radar ,my colleague also followed the bits down to approximate 1500ft on th... read more »read more »

Alan Mudge from Kings Lynn

Posted at 9:41pm on Wednesday, February 1st, 2017

As an armourer on Lightnings, I considered the Mk.6 the best of the bunch for gun changes, arming and re-arms. The two 30mm cannon in the forward ventral position at around waist height was ideal. Equally important was the purpose designed equipment to fit and remove the guns making the whole task very straight forward. My Mk.6 experience was on 23 Sqn. at Leuchars 1972-1975, from there I went to 19 Sqn. at Guetersloh with their 2As. The guns were in the upper nose and required double step platforms and win... read more »read more »

Peter Grayson from Saffron Walden

Posted at 5:23pm on Tuesday, January 17th, 2017

XP702 wast the first aircraft I worked on in ASF, RAF Binbrook 1979. It breaks my heart to see it has ended its life this way.

Gerald Smith from Plymouth

Posted at 12:34pm on Tuesday, January 10th, 2017

I was an apprentice in the development division of EE Aviation ( before it was swallowed up by BAC ) at Bradford works . During this time we were working on many upgrades for the Lightning , the other was the Concord , our division was developing generating equipment and also fuel distribution actuators . Amazingly we were also upgrading the electronics used in the Shackletons of coastal command, the forerunner of the Comet derived airborne radar system.
Happy days, !!!!

Richard Stevenson from Kent

Posted at 3:50pm on Sunday, January 8th, 2017

I was posted to RAF Wattisham in 1964 as a cook in the airmanship mess, whilst the 111 Squadron was base there, 24 hour fighter station.

Adam Chesters from Basildon Essex

Posted at 10:50am on Wednesday, August 10th, 2016

To John Collins from usa , I believe their is still a p 1 lighting on display at storage site next devonport dockyard before the you get to the ferry terminal to torpoint in plymouth alas this was in 1998 private collector bought the aircraft. spent many envious days walking past a fine aircraft.

Rick Lea from Weston Super Mare

Posted at 11:47am on Monday, July 11th, 2016

I watched R. Beaumont fly the P1A/P1B whilst sitting on a stile at RAF Warton transit Camp in 1954 aged 10, having heard the sonic booms over the Irish Sea I wanted to be in that machine and joined the ATC three years later. I started flying the Lightning in 1967 after a tour on Hunters and flew 1500 fabulous hours in all marks of Lightning except the F2 and F2A, possibly the best combat version as it had retained those essential nose cannon!I've flown Hunter, Mirage and Jaguar types on Operational Service ... read more »read more »